


it's noon on new years (and im lookin' at you, dear)

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Depression, Found Family, Gen, Getting Together, M/M, Modern AU, Recovery, Time Zone Differences, background adhd!Ylgr, everything is the same except - waves hands - technooolooogy, im too tired to tag this ill add more later, look. cell phones.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27485035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: It’s cold, colder than snow. The heat in the apartment is off and the cellphone sits unused, unopened in its box on the bedside table... but it won't stay like that, not forever.
Relationships: Helbindi & Ylgr (Fire Emblem), Helbindi/Hríd (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Ylgr

**Author's Note:**

> i saw [this tweet](https://twitter.com/Plaidyart/status/1325594169235083271) and i was like, hm, seemings as it was their stuff that originally helped me do a 180 on the concept of helbindi and now i can Enjoy Him, and seemings as i have spent so so much time Thinking about FEH and FEH OCs i thought, well, i feel like i might perhaps be qualified to Create a Thing as a Humble Offering so then i did and here we are
> 
> my feh credentials are that im still afraid of original hector and i remember the three month gap between book I chapter 10 and 11
> 
> update: i edited the time stamps to be more accurate to the 26h nifl time system that i spent way too much time on. they're basically the same tho

**3:48 AM**

It’s cold, colder than snow. The cellphone sits unused, unopened in its box on the bedside table. The lightbulb in the lamp’s been busted for weeks. There’s a heap of junk mail on the table, next to old take-out containers and plastic bags for recycling and hats and gloves and old wax candles and dust and dirt-

Múspell winters didn’t start being cold until after the war.

His landline rings again. He rolls back over, and waits for the echoes to stop.

**3:42 AM**

The heat’s broken in the building and the landlord doesn’t care. There are blankets in a box, in a package wrapped in paper, but there are letters in there, too.

He waits for his phone to ring so he can roll back over and go to bed.

**3:49 AM**

He picks up on the third ring with a gruff _what?_ and the brat keeps talking, as if he’d been there all along.

“-so _rude?_ Can you believe it? And teacher wasn’t there so I _wanted_ to kick him but I _didn’t,_ I said, _well_ , if you want to be an _ass_ about it-”

“Language,” he says, automatically, then winces. It’s not that _he_ cares, perse, it’s-

The brat shrieks. “Helbindi! You're here!” she shouts.

Then keeps on talking.

**3:45 AM**

“And as _soon_ as I get home I’m going over to Lys’-”

**3:42 AM**

“School was _so BORING_ today but I found this-”

**3:49 AM**

“And I knew _all_ the capitals but I couldn’t tell anyone how come so _I_ said-”

**5:44 AM**

The bratling is crying.

“I didn’t _me_ _eeeeeee_ _an tooooooo!_ I tried so _hard-”_

Her world is _over._ She failed _a_ _nother_ test. Her brother’s gonna be so _disappointed._

It’s not. It doesn’t matter. Hríd will spend an hour comforting her and the next 23 beating himself up for not being there more often.

He grimaces, and says none of that.

Doesn’t even say _“listen, you know I’m not all that-”_

He just grits his teeth, tells her to open her book, and tells her to walk him through it.

**2:42 AM**

He doesn’t have a laptop, or, hells, internet. The cellphone does, though, and if he’s going to have to – godsdamn it – study to help this brat-

**8:48 AM**

In the photo, she’s beaming, holding her award. Her brother is in the background, wearing a delicate smile. The shitty quality of the newspaper doesn’t fully hide how exhausted he looks. Or maybe it’s just that he thinks no one is looking.

Helbindi’s not going to think about it.

Instead, he’s going to go hunt down his cellphone, and then the charger, and finally figure out how to answer the brat’s texts.

**5:38 AM**

His mornings have a soundtrack now, how about that? Turns out the cellphone is good for more than just making noises every morning at 3.

The little bratling gun fires off thoughts one after another , even louder than the music, while he putters around. Ought to tidy up. Dust. Get some of the mail off the table. Spring’s coming, and all that shit.

**4:45 AM**

Ylgr pauses, then coughs loudly. “Eh _hem._ Well???”

Helbindi startles out of his thoughts and lays the heavy envelope with the iceblue seal back down in the pile of flyers and ads.

“What?”

“I _said,_ you’re coming, right?”

He can’t exactly admit to not paying attention. He’s not keen on getting scolded by a kid.

“...yeah? Course.”

She squeals, says _I told him so!!!,_ and before Helbindi can ask, _who?,_ she’s back to her rapid-fire narration.

**21:00 [8:18 AM]**

Everyone mills around awkwardly in the lobby, waiting to be allowed into the auditorium. Most people here are family – parents, siblings, friends. Most people here are Niflian – metallic-yet-pale hair, pastel-but-hard eyes. Most people here are happy, despite the pits and cracks still torn into the pavement outside. Despite the burns still on buildings throughout the city. Despite the obvious gaps here and there in the compact family units. Everyone smiles, widely and with genuine enjoyment when they once again spot someone they know across the lobby and wind their way across to administer hugs and kisses.

They smile. Helbindi grimaces, and tries to fold himself even further into the wall.

**22:12 [9:25 AM]**

Every kid is special, sure, yada yada bullshit. But honestly – he almost feels bad for those other punks. How is any kid supposed to compare with the confidence and sheer joy with which Ylgr commands her small fifteen seconds of stage space as she waltzes across to receive her little mock-up graduation degree?

Yeah, Menja would have. If she’d lived long enough to graduate grade school.

If she'd lived that long, the two of them would have been friends, probably. No – sisters.

A blush immediately prickles him. Makes him feel like a damn fool. This _having a family_ shit is not for him, not for someone like him and not for him in particular.

Compared to all this? This _"everybody clapping"_ and _"everybody proud"_ and _"everything warm"?_

He’s nothing.

He waits for Ylgr to flounce her way back to her seat and start chattering with her friends before he slips out of the auditorium.

**22:15 [9:28 AM]**

His plans of _getting-the-fuck-out-of-this-life_ are derailed when he runs smack dab into a familiar presence. Skin as cold as the dead. Stance as hard as iron. A diplomatically cordial expression that just barely conceals a ragged-edged, empty, desperate… something. An unknown something that always makes Helbindi feel things that he doesn’t care to confront.

It may be spring, but it’s Nifl and its freezing, and when Hríd exhales, his breath sends hot clouds of vapor curling along his jaw and past his ear like acrid smoke.

The burn scars themselves are only faintly visible.

Helbindi runs straight into Hríd, and the man doesn’t even have the decency to seem mildly surprised.

“You too, eh?” he says.

“Uh,” Helbindi replies, which is eloquent as fuck.

He shuts his trap. Hríd falls silent, too.

Nifl's pretty quiet, too. At least compared to the kind of places he grew up.

He shifts on his feet awkwardly.

Hríd stares, and then _doesn't_ stare.

Eventually, finally, he nods, and it's a soft muted motion. “Right,” he says distantly , as if Helbindi has answered some invisible unheard question. Which is just fucking _rude,_ but not as rude as how he smiles briefly, says _I’ll b_ _e_ _out of your w_ _ay_ _, then,_ and strides back inside without waiting for an answer.

Helbindi’s has straight a-fucking-nough of Nifl, but he makes up his mind to stay and wait for the event to be over, so at the very least he can say a _proper_ goodbye to the brat, thanks much.


	2. Helbindi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was done and then i went and rewrote it because i wasnt happy who would have guessed that would happen not me, a writer. it could absolutely use further editing for, like, emotions and flow and what not but at a certain point you have to put a thing down
> 
> CWs for the kind of depression that makes all the time go blurry, cws for the trauma of not having any fucknign MONEY
> 
> OH one last bit of business. this work falls under a couple of categories re [my imminent departure as a writer from ao3](https://rigil-kentauris.tumblr.com/post/637978414567112704/okay-after-the-lonnnggest-time-here-is-the), so while its possible it may remain up for good, it is also possible i will remove it at some point after it finishes. so i would recommend downloading it when its finished (before its done, its likely ill be making tiny little edits here and there for typos and what not) if you think you might ever want to reread it.

There was a time in his life - there must have been - when every day wasn't so ever-fucking-exhausting. When he used to look forward to getting up. Right? When mamá and papa would hold one another and waltz quietly around the hearth at dawn when the light was still gold, and he'd tumble into the kitchen with Menja on his tail, and she'd clamor for flatcake and he'd argue for something else and then he'd look forward to getting out of the house and running around and kicking some rocks into the stream with Alaric and Mysing and Njall-

All dead, of course. You live life and then you grow up, and realize the stream in your memories was more of a trash-filled trickle, and the hearth was made of sooty rocks, and the sun only shone inside because of cracks in the tin roof.

That's what getting old is. He pushes himself out of bed in the mornings and his back cracks and it didn't used to. Life gets worse, and worse, and worse.

He thinks maybe all of this would have been easier if he'd went to school. All the elites with their fancy connections and little cliques and collected circles, they all made it out fine. They seized what little Surtr hadn't scorched, and left the parched and cracked dirt for everyone else. And, yeah, who didn't see _that_ coming?

If he'd really thought about it - sat down and was honest with himself - he expected fighting in Surtr's wars to fuck him over in the end. What he didn't expect is that coming home could be even worse. Every day is... exhausting. He tries to go back, but there's only so many minor rebellions that can be put down. Only so many Loyalists. Only so many Royalists. Only so many Emblian extremists. If he'd gone to school with all the rich and happy people, maybe he would have learned what people do after war ends.

Wars ending. There's a paradox for you.

But there it is, and there he is, out of a job and back to every day being mind-numbingly exhausting.

He's been here before, so he knows the dance. The first thing to go is the apartment. He doesn't need that kind of space and he doesn't - probably won't ever again - have that kind of budget. Second is the privacy - he's sharing his life with three other people like him. It only takes about two weeks before they all know one another's worst habits. Fine. You have to pull together in situations like these. Lose the individuality. He's part of a unit now - it's safer, it's more efficient, and it's...

Ylgr calls a couple times, but it's summer break for her. It's easier to ignore the ringer and let it all slide past him.

Right? It is easier. That's the point. Life is going to be hard enough now. Why not consolidate when he can?

But...

But there's nothing in his playbook that says _withdraw._ There's nothing in the playbook that says you can't have friends. Can't have a life. Can't use a cellphone that someone else pays for. Right? That's just stupid. There's no room for stupid at the bottom. No missteps. No errors.

Yeah...

Yeah.

Yeah, and that longing? That _hope?_

That's a misstep, and it's one he can no longer afford.

-

Wake up. Go to bed.

-

Wake up, go to bed.

-

Wake up... go to bed.

-

And then it's autumn.

-

He's trying to pick up sewing. His flatmates had a good laugh, that somehow he made it through his whole life - _his_ life - without knowing how to mend things. It's not like he wore much, though.

But, okay. He's going to do something for himself. The days are passing by in a wet fall rain slurry of day and night. He's gotta do something, before he forgets how to want to. And it had may as well be useful.

The thread is so damn hard to... well, thread, through the needle. He also keeps dropping the needle onto his bed, and then stabbing himself with it as he roots around for it. The thing's so small, and his fingers are so big, so clumsy. He finds himself sticking his tongue out as he concentrates. The thread is so imperceptible. He can barely even see it.

The thread gets closer. He narrows his eyes. The frayed edge catches the edge, sticks... and then goes completely the other direction.

_"Fuck!"_

He flings the needle. And immediately regrets it, because it sails straight over the end of the bed, and falls down under it.

"Fuck," he repeats, with a little less energy.

Because that's the kind of day it is, right? The kind of day where all the little things go wrong. Fire from a thousand embers.

His knees pop when he gets down to look under the bed. He's shoved his suitcase under there, and it's covered in dust. The floor has accumulated bits of detritus. Papers, wrappers. A few bitten off fingernails. Býleistr, shoved in a corner. He grimaces.

He's never gonna find it like this.

What he needs is a flashlight. Wiggle that around, catch the reflection of the metal. Grab it, learn it and go back to feeling nothing throughout the day.

-

Four grown ex-soldiers and no one has a torch.

-

He doesn't know why he's being so stubborn about this. It's not like one day, one session of practice is going to get him anywhere. He grits his teeth and looks down at his phone. He hasn’t turned the thing on in ages. Doubts it's still even charged.

The smooth expanse sits blankly. The power button on the side is awfully small.

He reaches out for it, then pulls back. Reaches out for it again, then drops his hand.

He doesn't really need this today.

He doesn't.

But...

He shakes his head vehemently. He's being an idiot. It's a phone. It's a flashlight. It's a needle. It's nothing. He grabs it, squashes the button in. The phone turns on with a merry little chirp.

He doesn't wait for the damn notifications to load. Just swipes the flashlight on as soon as he can, and jams his head under the bed. The needle is in the back, caught up in a shirt he hadn't known was under there and had missed for some time.

Good. See? Effort pays off in the end.

And if he shoves his phone under a pile of laundry so he doesn't have to deal with seeing if there aren't notifications, well, that's between him and his clothes.

-

It's when he's making up the laundry a week later that he remembers the phone exists. He's picking up a pile and the phone drops out. It lands on the ground with a fierce crack.

The screen splinters.

Great.

It's not like he cares, but he at least has to see if it still works. Respectful, and all. It was a gift and he ought to see if it still functions at the least.

He sticks it on a charger, puts it out of his mind, and goes to do his laundry.

**9:32 PM**

It's pathetic, how something so small can look so big. The phone can fit - can fit _easily_ \- in his hand. So why the hell is his tongue sticking in his mouth? If ignoring them all summer wasn't enough to cut ties with them, then surely breaking the phone would be. Isn't that what you're supposed to do after wars end? You don't have to deal with your enemies anymore?

His hand is shaking. He wants to point at himself and laugh. Coward. Idiot. _Loser._

He's not going to be too afraid to turn on a fucking phone. No. That's not who he is. Not what he dragged himself out of to be.

He jams the button hard, and when it lights up, he nods sharply, sets it aside, and leaves the room to go work on the rest of the night.

**3:00 AM**

He wakes up with a jolt, and rolls out of bed. He land on his knees and grabs Býleistr from under the bed in one smooth stroke, swinging sharply to his feet and bringing the axe around to point at-

At his phone.

Which is just giving off its long-forgotten alarm.

He slings the axe onto his bed, and drops beside it. One, two thunks. Lets the alarm go off for another minute before he really wakes up, realizes he has flatmates, has flatmates who are going to pissed at him if he leaves the ringer on at 3 in the morning.

Fine.

_Fine._

He has to look at the screen to turn the alarm off, so that's why he notices all the notifications. Lots of messages from Ylgr. She has apparently been keeping up a ceaseless little journal of messages. The latest one, from only two days ago. He doesn't know why he thought it would be any different. The brat doesn't know the meaning of the words _give up._ If she hadn't learned already, probably never would. Stubbornness runs in the whole damn family. Pack of nuisances, he thinks, then kicks himself hard inside. Stubborn? Yeah. But one of those sisters had died to stop a thing he'd never bothered to resist, and he has to respect that. Doesn't want to be the kind of person who treats that any other way.

He stops scrolling idly. Now that's a surprise. King bother of the bunch had sent a few messages. Invitations, looked like, to old diplomatic events. Very cordially, worded. Very impersonally worded. Rather _coldly,_ in fact.

He can't stop himself from feeling annoyed. In fact, he's a little ticked off. If he hadn't wanted Helbindi to show up to his fancy, ridiculous diplomatic things, he didn't need to go out of his way to send an invitation. Helbindi knows the kind of places he's not wanted. Hadn't he been to this new Nifl once already? Hadn't he seen people looking at him? And the old one, ha, the old Nifl, hadn't he stood in the snow and watched it all melt away? Watched it be destroyed? Chased after the only people trying to stop it?

He doesn't know who's fucked up political agenda Hríd is trying to play into by fake inviting a Múspellian general to Niflian state events, but he sure as hell isn't going to play along. He's not- he's not going to be _used_ again.

He's jabs the screen and starts typing, because, well, the latest event? It's only two weeks away. And sure, he's weeks past the respond-by date, but fuck that.

He's no one's fucking pawn.

Not ever again.

**9:15 PM**

His phone rings in the middle of dinner. He was expecting Ylgr to call, eventually, but that was _eventually._ He groans, and clanks his plate down on the rickety side table. Not like he was _eating_ that, or anything.

He takes a deep breath, then picks up the phone.

"Alright," he says, before she can get a word in, "here's the deal, brat-"

"I'm sorry," says a voice that, while strangely softened by the phone, is nonetheless familiar. _"What?"_

"Listen here," he says without preamble. Shouts. Whatever. "You thought you could play with me? If you didn't want me to come to your little _soirée,_ you shouldn't have invited me. But it's too late for that now. Try and stop me."

"I- just wanted-" Hríd manages to eek out before Helbindi hangs the phone up in a huff.

**13:31**

Helbindi doesn't have any fancy clothes, which is great, because he doesn't care what anyone thinks about him. He doesn't have money for a plane ticket, which is fine, because that's what credit cards are for, right? He doesn't have vacation at his job yet, which is fine, because one of his flatmates is an ex-medic, and he buys him lunch in exchange for a half-decent looking sick note.

All that's great, because it _needs_ to be great, and it needs to be great because right now he's standing on a Nifl sidewalk in the middle of the day in the middle of the capital with no idea how exactly he got to this point in his life. Or how to walk it back.

The guards at the base of the _Adreitament du Calengier_ eye him again. What is he supposed to do? Just walk up to the big old fancy building? Breeze by the guards? Announce that the King of Nifl had personally invited him to... whatever this is?

Yeah. Yeah, like that'd go over well.

He sighs, then makes another lap around the stout building. According to the pilot, it's a gorgeous, temperate day today. And yeah, the sun is blasting a shining brilliant silver across all the snow and ice, but autumn in the capital is no joke. He's freezing. And it's not like when he was in the army, and the mages were doing so much firework that the whole air glowed with warmth. No, here it's so cold it bites. Digs harshly into his arms and legs like diamond dragon teeth. Maybe that's why they all believe so strongly in Nifl here.

Damn. ~~~~

_Damn._

He can't fucking do this. He can't do this. What by _Hel_ was he thinking? It's almost surreal. Where is he? In Nifl, standing on the sidewalk, with icicles hanging off the roofs beside him? The guards give him another look, and the light is blinding on their icemetal pauldrons.The air is bitter here, it tears him up. What did he think he was going to do? March up to where? Declare that he was what?

His head is spinning. It hits all at once, the enormity of what he's done. Run off to another country on a fool's errand. Flying off the handle like an impulsive, stupid-

No. Like the depressed bastards he'd once fought beside. The ones who'd always clamor for the most dangerous missions.

The ones who didn't care if they came back.

He sucks in a breath.

The air is a solid knife to his throat.

That's it, right? He's... he's messed up. By what he's seen, by what he's done. And he's in Nifl, ran all the way out here, to go- go _project_ it all on someone who didn't do anything to him but be decent.

He wants to call himself pathetic. A pathetic piece of filth.

He can't bring himself to do it, though. Mostly, he's just... cold. And very aware of how consciously the guards are staring at him.

The thin, sparkling sheets of ice crack under his boots as he walks away.

**03:10**

He slams awake with a jolt, but manages not to pull a weapon on his phone alarm this time. Helps that he couldn't have gotten Býleistr on the plane if he'd tried.

He should have turned the damn thing off, is what he should have done. Wasn't thinking about it. He's wide awake now, though. His flight's not for six hours and there's only so much staring he can do when it comes to the ceiling of the precisely clean hotel room.

He swings his legs out of bed and immediately puts them right back under the blankets. It's cold as only Nifl can be.

Which leaves staring at the ceiling.

Or thinking in the dark.

...yeah.

He grabs his phone. Other than talking and looking facts up, he hasn't done much with the thing. Ylgr had installed some odd block-y games last time he was in the country, but he'd never bothered to figure them out. Didn't feel like doing it now.

He checks the news instead. Nothing in the Múspell news about it, and he doesn't know what the decent Nifl papers are. Finding anything takes him enough time that his arms are getting cold from being out of the blanket.

Ah. Here it is.

_-was hosted today in Nifl. Attendees included the ruling regulatory commissioners of the provinces, as well as several international attachés. Notably absent was his lordship, the crown monarch Hríd, who announced to the Diatribe this morning that-  
_

That none of his business. Helbindi closes that article in a hurry. He wasn't invested in the news anyhow.

 _Yes you were!_ he can almost hear Ylgr cackling, in his head. _You spent like ten minutes looking it up!_

 _What do you know,_ he thinks.

Still.

_Still._

It hadn't been the best thing he'd ever done, to flake out on an event. And by the looks of it, a more important one than he thought. Overall, probably a good thing he didn't go. He can't imagine the looks on the faces of the fancy _commissioners_ and _attachés_ and - he's gonna crack up - _his lordship._

Who, come to think of it, flaked out of his own damn event, too?

If it wasn't important enough for the man himself to show up too, well, Helbindi doesn't need to apologize for his own absence, now does he?

Now does he?

He grits his teeth. Gods be damned.

 _Look,_ he writes. _I was putting my shit on you, with this whole... meeting thing. So I didn't come. Sorry._

It takes longer than it should have to write. He stares at it for a bit. The message feels both lacking, and way too much at the same time.

But it's got an apology in there. That's the point. He hits send, and chucks the phone back on the tidy little side table. By the time Hríd gets that, Helbindi will be either on, or nicely on his way _to,_ his morning flight out of here. Back home to Múspell, where he will never repeat this kind of thoughtless mistake again.

-

He's not expecting the thing to buzz back, almost immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look it made sense to me that helbindi would answer the phone by calling ylgr a brat but it was only afterwards that i realized hríd would have no idea this is what helbindi thought and as far as he knows, helbindi did what normal people do and looked at his phone for a split second before picking it up.  
> anyway fellas, the hot guy you havent heard from in months answers the phone by casually calling you a brat wyd  
> -
> 
> also, the non old norse bits are modeled off normaund, not french, for reference.


End file.
